New circles

It is some time ago that I posted a circle quilt, but here is my latest:

I used a mixture of commercial and hand dyed fabrics for it. Circles are hand drawn, which explains why they are not exacty round :-) .

Back to circles

My plan for this year was to create a number of quilts based upon microphotos of beverages. For some reason I did not get very inspired and up till now managed only one quilt with this theme. As November is approaching I think I better switch my theme for this year back to circles. I have been making quite a lot of them. Here are some of the recent ones:

Raindrops

Cornucopia 

no title yet 

Blue moon

Tequila

Although I am still making circle quilts, my theme for this group this year is beverages. Here is the first one:

Maybe not what you expected with this theme, but this quilt is based upon a microscopic photo of tequila. I used a combination of hand dyed and commercial fabrics.

Duck!

Duck! no not for Donald, but beware the circles are falling :-). This working on a series is very addictive to me. This week I completed this quilt:

All fabrics are my own hand dyed ones. While I was working on this quilt I had a couple of other ideas as well so the next circle quilt is a work in process :-)).

Overlapping circles

For my latest circle quilt I decided to use commercial batiks. The top has 4 layers and each layer has different sizes of circles in different places. After pinning all layers together the result is a see-through of the circles. As there were so many layers a facing was rather difficult, so I settled on a sheer yellow binding. Quilting design was a simple one, just following the design of the fabrics.

Throwing pebbles into the pond

Here is another one of my circle quilts. I discovered that I really like this theme and I have so many ideas that I just can not stop creating new ones:-). Here is my latest quilt. The title gave me some problems, but an internet friend gave me a push in the right direction. It is called Throwing pebbles into the pond:

Within the circle

I know that for the whole year we have to make 4 quilts and yes, I have completed my 3rd one :-). No doubt I will end up with a lot more than 4 by the end of the year, but I am having fun with this theme.

For this quilt I started with a piece of black fabric which I had discharged with bleach. Most of the blacks discharged to a light brown/yellow color, but this one discharged to white. I quilted it with a red thread and added circles on it. The circles are made from commercial felt. After I stitched them to the background I added blanket stitch with a red thread of pearl cotton. Title is 'Within the Circle'.

Circles never end

Yes I know the total number of quilts for this year is 4,and I have completed my second one already :-). When I was working on my Onion quilt, I had another idea as well. Of course I could have waited till April to start with it, but I have time available at the moment, so why not start straight away. This quilt started out as one piece of snow dyed fabric. Added batting and a backing fabric and stitched the outlines. Turned everything around and cut an opening in the backing fabric close to the top. I cut a number of circles out of freezer paper and started playing around to found a interesting design. After that I stitched around the circles and removed the paper. The quilting I did on the rest of the quilt was just straight lines.
The next part was the scary part. I cut out the central part of the circles. If I had made a mistake I could have thrown the quilt away, but luckily everything went okay. Of course the color of the batting was white and this would show a bit, I used a pink marker to give the batting some color. With floss I hand stitched around the circles. The straight lines needed more quilting so I added lots of circles on it as you can see on the detail picture.
Years ago I found a capiz shell lamp in a garage sale. I did not have any use for the lamp, but I wanted the shells :-). These shells I added to the open spaces and this is how the quilt looks now:

 And a detail:

The quilting I did on this piece gave me lots and lots of thread ends. I could have connected the circles, but this would have give another look and that was not what I wanted. Size is 12"x24" (30x60 cm) and the title is Circles never end.

Life is like an onion

My first quilt for this group started with a visit to the super market. I needed a big onion. Okay, I admit, I love onion soup, but this one I needed for stamping. I sliced the onion in 2 parts and let it dry for a couple of days so that the separate rings show better. In the mean time I prepared the fabric. The centre of the quilt is made from a piece of snow dyed fabric with a big black border around it. 

When the onion had dried enough I applied a thin layer of decoulorant plus on top (gold and bronze) and placed my stamp on the fabric.

This proces I repeated till I had a pleasing arrangement of 'circles'. After the decoulorant had dried I ironed it - a very smelly process -, but I was happy with the result. The circles I quilted with a gold metallic thread following the rings as much as possible. The other part of the quilt I quilted with a wavy grid using blue and black thread. This is how the completed quilt looks like:

 And a detail shot:

And yes I should have used a lint roller to remove the cat hair :-)
For the title I found inspiration in a quote by Carl Sandburg: 'Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.